PITTSBURGH - The Rangos Omnimax Theater at the Carnegie Science Center has decided to stop showing Bill Cowher's weekly press conference on its massive, domed screen in the wake of numerous complaints that the image was overwhelming a disproportionate number of viewers, causing many to experience motion sickness and some even to pass out.Richard Lee, director of the Theater, explained that Cowher's "chin and dismissive icy glares" are all wrapped around a 79 foot diameter aluminum dome, projected through the largest film frame in the motion picture industry using a 15,000 watt, short-arc Xenon lamp and an 1800 fisheye lens. The result is a vivid, many say unsettling, image.
Cowher's voice and his "guttural grunts of disgust and evasion" are transmitted through 15,200 watts of sound via 44 speakers.
In the end, Lee and his colleagues decided the combination of Cowher and the Omnimax was simply too much for the viewers. "It got to the point where we had to have an ambulance waiting outside," said Lee. "We needed to end it before somebody really got hurt."
